2008 - The Irresistible Inheritance of Wilberforce

by Paul Torday

  “I suppose it is,” I agreed. “I’ve never really thought of it like that.”

  “I’m going to take you on as a patient,” said Colin. “That is, if you want me to help you.”

  “That’s very kind of you,” I replied.

  “I’m very expensive.”

  “That doesn’t matter,” I said. “I’m very grateful.” I was grateful. It would be so nice to have someone taking an interest in me, now I was on my own again.

  “There might be more expense on the way,” Colin warned me, “because I think the first thing you ought to do is check yourself into The Hermitage. I’ll make all the arrangements, but you need to understand what we are trying to achieve. You need to want to do it.”

  “I’ll do anything that you suggest,” I told him. “What happens at The Hermitage?”

  Colin stood up and stretched, then walked around the desk and sat down again in a chair on the same side of the desk as me. “I’m not a specialist in the treatment of addictive behaviour,” he explained.

  “I’m not addictive,” I protested. “That’s people who smoke dope, or use syringes. Drinking a little wine isn’t addictive.”

  “I’m afraid I think that it is,” said Colin, “and if you want me to help you, you must be ready to listen to me and then take my advice. Otherwise, we will risk wasting each other’s time.”

  “Of course,” I said. The thought that Colin might drop me before he had really begun to help me frightened me.

  “Wilberforce,” said Colin, “the causes of addiction can be both familial and genetic. Often it is both. Did anyone in your family drink?”

  “I don’t know who my real parents were,” I said. “My foster parents never did.”

  “It is a disease,” Colin explained, “and in the end it is a disease of one’s own sense of self. Until you can understand that, and truly accept that you need help that only someone, or something external to you can change the way you are, you will never be cured.

  “The Hermitage offer special programmes for people, like you, who have got into the habit of drinking too much, or who have become addicted to drugs of one sort or another. They have a programme called the Twelve Steps, which is based on the work of Alcoholics Anonymous. They have a good record of helping people. I recommend you enter yourself into one of their programmes. It would mean going down to their place in Gloucestershire for a few weeks to give it a try.”

  “Of course; if that’s what you suggest, I’ll do it.”

  “It’s far from being cheap,” Colin said, “but, if you can afford it, I can’t think of a better way to tackle this. Wilberforce, you’ve got to want to do it. Otherwise it’s a lot of money down the drain.”

  “I’ll do it,” I told him.

  §

  The Hermitage was a large country house, set in rolling wooded countryside. When the taxi brought me down the drive, it reminded me at first glance of Hartlepool Hall; but Hartlepool Hall didn’t have modern wings, and brick-built staff houses, or a car park. I went into the hall, and it was like checking in at a country-house hotel. There were cut flowers everywhere; a smiling, elegant woman took down my details and made a print of my credit card; then a porter took my suitcase and showed me to my room.

  It was an elegant room. It was faultlessly decorated: a pale-green carpet, green floral curtains tied up with velvet cords, a large double bed with a cream bedspread, and a door into a large bathroom. A bay window looked out on to a wooded valley with a stream running down it.

  I was just unpacking my clothes when there was a knock at the door. I went and opened it and saw a man, younger than myself, with hair cut very short, wearing a short-sleeved khaki shirt and blue jeans. Although it was January and there were still patches of frost in the valley where the sun had not been able to reach, the temperature inside the house was very warm.

  “Hello,” said the young man. His eyes glinted cheerfully behind round, horn-rimmed spectacles. “I’m Eric.”

  “Hello,” I said. “I’m Wilberforce.”

  We shook hands. I wondered what he wanted.

  He said, “We’re going to be spending some time together, and I just wanted to introduce myself. Have you had lunch?”

  “Not yet.”

  “There’s a canteen, but for now I’m going to suggest you and I have a light lunch together, to give ourselves time to get to know one another before you meet some of our other guests. If I call back in ten minutes, would that suit you?”

  “Very well, thanks.”

  Quarter of an hour later we were sitting in a small room in one of the modern wings I had noticed. The room was sparsely furnished. There was a sideboard with a sink unit built in, a table, two chairs, and a whiteboard. A small fridge stood in one corner. On the table in the centre of the room there were two places laid, and two plates of smoked salmon and lettuce. A jug of water sat in the middle of the table.

  Eric said, “Ah, smoked salmon! My favourite.”

  We ate the food. It tasted of nothing. Eric poured me a glass of water and watched me drink it. It tasted of metal and effluent. He said, “You’d rather be drinking wine, I expect.”

  “No,” I lied.

  “You see,” began Eric and then stopped. He said, “What can I call you? I can’t call you Wilberforce.”

  “Everyone else does,” I said.

  Eric shook his head: “It sounds so formal, using your surname. We’re not formal here. We can’t be. You and I need to become really good friends. Do you mind if I call you Will instead?”

  “If you want to.”

  “Great, Will. If you’re comfortable with that, then I am. I’m going to tell you a little bit about myself. We will be working hard together, and you need to know about me, and to trust me, Will. I was an alcoholic once.”

  I gazed at him. It was quite possible: at any rate, there seemed no reason to disbelieve him.

  “You’d never guess it to look at me now,” he said with pride. I did not reply. Eric went on, “You know, I was drinking a bottle of whisky a day. A day! Can you believe it?”

  I didn’t know what to say, but Eric wasn’t waiting for my responses. He wanted to talk about his life as an alcoholic.

  “Yes, a bottle a day. I was a wreck. I lost my job. My wife left me. But I couldn’t stop drinking. Then, one day, some friends took me to a group at our local church, which helped people like me. And they got me to take the first step.”

  Eric got to his feet, picked up a marker pen and wrote on the white board: “Step One: We must admit we are powerless over alcohol. We must admit we cannot manage our lives.”

  He sat down again, and jerked his thumb at the scrawl on the board, which I could barely read. He said, “That’s the first step, Will. Just now I admitted to you I was once an alcoholic. My own life started to change from the day I finally found the courage to admit it to myself. That’s our process here. We need to admit we’ve got a problem. After that, there will be more steps that we will have to take together. The first step is the biggest and most important. After that, we will take them one at a time. That’s how we live our lives here: one step at a time. But with my help, and God’s help, you’re going to find the strength to walk this road with me and at the end you will be cured, just as I am.”

  “Did your wife come back to you in the end?” I asked.

  Eric looked a little put out. “No,” he said. “But that’s another story.” He rose to his feet again, went across to the fridge and took out a can of Diet Coke. “Want some?”

  I shook my head. He popped the can, upended it and took a long pull on it. A trickle of Coke ran down his chin and the side of his neck, which he wiped away with his finger. Then he put the can down beside the sink and came and sat down again.

  “So, Will, my question today is: do you think you’ve got a problem? Let’s look at some of the issues around that, shall we?”

  “I do like drinking wine,” I admitted. “I mean, I can drink it, or not drink it, as I please. But I do enjoy i
t. I’m very interested in it.”

  “Wine is a good drink,” said Eric, “in moderation. Our Lord drank wine. And how much wine do you drink, Will?”

  “I like to try different wines. I enjoy comparing the tastes. I keep notes. It’s a great interest of mine.”

  “Will, you’re not really answering my question,” said Eric. “How much do you drink each day?”

  “Oh, it can vary,” I said, “but I suppose three or four bottles a day.”

  “A day!” exclaimed Eric. “Four bottles a day!” He got to his feet again, and went to the sink, finishing off his can of Diet Coke. He came back and sat down again.

  “Will, I want to say something. You’ve got a big problem. But you’ve also got a big heart. It took courage to do what you have just done: to admit that you are powerless to stop drinking wine. That’s great.” He went and wrote on the whiteboard: “W. drinks four bottles of wine a day.”

  He returned and said, “That’s a lot of wine. That’s nearly fifteen hundred bottles of wine a year.”

  “I collect wine. I have quite a lot of it.”

  “Really?” said Eric. “And what do you call quite a lot?”

  “I have a hundred thousand bottles in my cellars—maybe a bit more.”

  Eric said, “Will, we’re not going to get this done if you’re going to be flippant. This is very serious stuff we’re doing here. This is about your life. This is about changing the rest of your life. So in this room we tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.”

  “I am telling the truth,” I said. “Why wouldn’t I?”

  Eric looked at me sadly. I had disappointed him in some way. He went and wrote again on the whiteboard: “I have a hundred thousand bottles of wine.”

  He came back and said, “You dream about wine, don’t you, Will? You dream about that wonderful wine cellar, where there’s always more wine, where you can always go and find another bottle.”

  “Yes,” I said. “Except that it’s not imaginary.”

  “I used to dream that I had my own off-licence,” said Eric wistfully. “I dreamed I had shelves and shelves of whisky: Bell’s, Famous Grouse, J & B, and Johnny Walker Black Label. I dreamed I could go there whenever I wanted to get more whisky. It was such a dreadful feeling when I awoke, to find that the whisky wasn’t there after all. I used to curl up in a ball on my bed, and cry like a baby.”

  “Yes, that must have been very hard for you,” I said with sympathy. “But I’m very lucky: I really do have a lot of wine,”

  I said. It seemed important that Eric should understand this point. “I drink a lot of wine. I’ve told you that. But that’s because it’s my hobby. I inherited some wine from a friend. He built up a fantastic collection. As far as I know, it is one of the largest collections of Bordeaux in private hands in this country.”

  Eric smiled. “OK, Will, you have a hundred thousand bottles of wine. You probably have a million bottles of wine, in your wonderful, secret cellar. OK. But do you own the wine, or does it own you?”

  The afternoon continued in this vein. Eric drank more Diet Coke. I longed for a glass of wine, but I knew I had to go without for a while. After an hour or two of conversation with Eric, which was becoming tedious, I decided it would be better, for Eric’s sake and mine, if I pretended that the undercroft did not exist.

  Eric was very pleased with me when I admitted that point to him. He said, “I’m so proud of you, Will, for owning up to that. It’s like you’re telling me you understand the need for truth. If you can be honest with me, you can be honest with yourself. You’re close to taking the first step.”

  I ate alone in my room that night. Eric said it was too soon for me to meet the other guests, but tomorrow I could join in a group discussion. When I had finished eating the tasteless food, I went and lay on my bed and thought about Catherine. Would she have approved of me being here? I thought she would have been very proud of me. For some reason a memory came into my mind of Catherine and me sitting together at a metal table on the pavement outside a bar, somewhere near our hotel in the Faubourg St Honore, on our last visit to Paris together. It was a sunny day, warm for late October, and we were both drinking white wine.

  Catherine said, “I hope we can always have happy times together like this, Wilberforce.”

  “What could stop us?” I said.

  “Because sometimes I worry about you drinking too much. It’s not that I mind you drinking a bit. You’ve earned the right to enjoy yourself, God knows, and I’d be the last person to get in the way of that. But I do worry sometimes. It makes you look ill. You look so much nicer, when you aren’t drinking.”

  “You mustn’t worry,” I said, “I’ll be all right. And you look very good to me at all times.”

  “Darling,” she said, smiling. Then she added, “I only mean, if it’s between the wine and me, I hope you’ll choose me.”

  I raised my glass to her, and she raised hers in reply and I said, “I’ve already chosen you.”

  I remember how we sat smiling at each other in the autumn sunshine, while we finished our wine together.

  Then, as I lay on my bed and remembered how she looked that day, and the sound of her voice, at long last the tears came. I mourned for Catherine for the first time since her death. I couldn’t remember what had happened, or why she had been taken from me; but I understood at last the full reality of my loss. She had been taken from me, and now I had to sort out my life. I lay on the bed and stared at the ceiling for a long while, before finally making the effort to undress and get inside the bed. Before I went to sleep, I said, “I choose you, Catherine. Not the wine.”

  §

  The next morning Eric came to take me down to breakfast. All meals were served in a smart self-service canteen. A dozen other tables were occupied by people either sitting alone or in groups of two or three. There was not much conversation. Eric and I collected some coffee and toast, and went and sat together.

  “Great bunch of guys here,” said Eric. “There’s Dave, who’s a methadone addict—really nice guy: he’s a florist. Pete, who’s sitting with him, is coming off a whisky habit. I can relate to Pete, ha ha.”

  I could see nothing out of the ordinary about either Dave or Pete: two quiet, middle-aged men having a cup of coffee together.

  Eric looked around him. “That girl over there—she’s Wilhelmina from Utrecht.” I looked across and saw a tall, pale girl with spectacles, and long, straight red hair, sitting alone at a table. “She got drunk the other day on two glasses of white-wine spritzer, and checked herself in here. I don’t know what we can do for her. She’s rather weird. That large man at the service counter—that’s Mick. Everybody here calls him ‘Big Mick’. He’s a tax accountant from the City, with a telephone-number salary, he tells me. He also has a drugs-and-violence problem: he’s a crack addict. But he’s a very, very sweet man so long as he’s not high. He has his own special plastic cutlery. We don’t like him around knives. But don’t worry about him: he’s more likely to damage himself than anyone else.”

  Big Mick was about six foot three and eighteen stone, balding and heavily muscled. He wore a blue tracksuit and was helping himself to a generous cooked breakfast. I decided I would avoid Big Mick.

  After breakfast there was a group meeting in a large conference room. Eric and another caseworker called Angela managed the session. The rest of us sat in a semicircle of chairs around the table where Eric and Angela sat. Angela spoke first. She said, “It’s important at these sessions that we listen as well as talk. You must tell the truth about yourself if you can, and be prepared to listen to others tell you the truth about yourself. Eric will facilitate our session this morning.”

  Eric stood up, a tin of Diet Coke in one hand, and said, “People, I’d like to introduce you to Will here. Will’s going to tell us why he’s here in just a moment, and then I’m hoping some of you will share your own experiences with him. I want Will to know that he’s not alone. I want him to hear how all of
you have struggled, and stumbled, but have taken one step and then the next on the road to recovery. Are you happy to talk to us about yourself, Will?”

  I nodded, and everyone looked at me expectantly. There was a silence.

  “Oh, I see,” I said. “You want me to say something now?”

  Angela said, “Yes please, Will. We truly want to share your problems with you, and work with you to achieve the right outcomes.”

  “Amen!” said Big Mick.

  I said, “Oh, well, there’s not a lot to say really. I drink wine. I love wine, in fact I collect wine. I’m very interested in it.”

  I stopped and Eric looked at me, and then prompted me by saying, “But one day…?”

  “Oh, yes, and then for various reasons I decided I ought to come here because I was probably drinking a bit more than I should be.”

  “Will was on four bottles of wine a day before he came here,” said Eric, with dramatic emphasis on the word ‘four’.

  “The Lord protect you!” said Big Mick.

  “Thanks very much,” I said. “Anyway, one day my wife was killed in a car crash so I thought I’d better get a grip on my life and I went to see a friend; he’s a doctor, a very nice chap called Colin whom I was at university with, and anyway Colin said he thought I might be drinking too much, and so I said well, what can I do about it? and he said—”

  “Slow down, slow down, Will,” said Angela.

  “How awful,” said Wilhelmina. “Your poor wife was killed.” She started to weep silently and took out a large handkerchief and blew her nose.

  “Was you driving?” asked Dave.

  “No, my wife was driving; it was an accident.” I felt exhausted, talking about myself in front of all these complete strangers.

  Big Mick said, “I smoked crack and I was possessed by demons and beat my partner, so that she left me. But then the Lord spoke to me and told me to check myself in here and now I am cured. Praise the Lord!”

  “Well, very nearly cured, Mick,” said Angela.

  Wilhelmina had finished weeping and now she, too, had something to say. “I was overcome by drinking some wine and I was at a party and I kissed a man and we went away and he did, oh, such things to me, and because of the wine I let him. Now I am a poor sinner without hope, and all because I drank too much wine.”